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Abstract
Excerpt: There can be little doubt but that the past 20 years will be looked back upon as one of the most eventful and interesting periods in the whole of American agricultural history. It is too early as yet to appraise the events of this period, and the forces that shaped them, from an entirely detached historical viewpoint. The attempt, however, is worth making; and few people are as well equipped to make it from the standpoint of long and intimate acquaintance with agricultural problems, as the author of this article. Here he tells the story of the increasing economic pressure upon farmers in the 1920’s; the gradual spread of a powerful farm movement from the grass roots; the ideas back of the farm legislation in the latter part of the decade; the modifications in these ideas and their extension in the agricultural programs of the 1930's. It cannot be said, he concludes, that these laws have solved the farm problem. Presumably they will themselves be subject to change and displacement. But if experience in this field teaches anything, it is that a continuous thread runs through the evolution of agricultural policy notwithstanding its inconsistencies and contradictions. The programs of the present become the foundations for the programs of the future.